Generally, this disclosure relates to methods and systems for determining the conditions of components, particularly the disclosure relates to methods and systems for determining conditions of components removably coupled to articles of personal protection equipment (PPE), by tracking their usage in a monitored working environment against a predetermined criterion, such as a change-out protocol.
Maintaining the safety and health of workers is a major concern across many industries. Various rules and regulations have been developed to aid in addressing this concern, which provide sets of requirements to ensure proper administration of personnel health and safety procedures. To help in maintaining worker safety and health, some individuals may be required to don, wear, carry, or otherwise use a PPE article, if the individuals enter or remain in work environments that have hazardous or potentially hazardous conditions. Known types of PPE articles include, without limitation, respiratory protection equipment (RPE), e.g., for normal condition use or emergency response, protective eyewear, such as visors, goggles, filters or shields, protective headwear, such as hard hats, hoods or helmets, hearing protection, protective shoes, protective gloves, other protective clothing, such as coveralls and aprons, protective articles, such as sensors, safety tools, detectors, global positioning devices, mining cap lamps and any other suitable gear.
For example, personnel in the nuclear industry may be required to wear radiation protective clothing and personal dosimeter devices. Law enforcement personnel are sometimes required to wear protective vests and helmets. There are numerous situations in the medical field in which healthcare workers must wear protective gowns, masks, face shields, gloves, etc. Workers in the food service industry are often required to wear hair netting, gloves, masks, etc. For example, there are also many industrial manufacturing scenarios in which personnel are required to wear protective or other specially designed articles in order to ensure a “clean” environment. For example, personnel in the micro-electronics manufacturing industry, biotech industry, laboratory/testing industry, are required to wear PPE articles not only to ensure their own safety, but to protect the equipment and devices which they assemble or perform various procedures with. There are also many industrial manufacturing scenarios in which personnel working in mines, oil refineries, metal grinding facilities, smelting facilities, industrial painting operations or pharmaceutical factories may be required to wear respiratory protection equipment (RPE).
There are many different kinds of respirators (e.g., RPE) utilized to prevent or reduce inhalation of hazardous or toxic materials. These RPE articles include, without limitation, components, for example, air-purifying filters, cartridge components, or canisters that remove specific air contaminants by passing ambient air through their air-purifying element. Typical chemical respirators use replaceable filter cartridge components that are coupled. Their proper use is contingent upon the respirators including the cartridges/canisters being replaced before they fail or that the correct types of respirators are to be used. However, many traditional respirators that include replaceable cartridges/canisters, typically, do not include any mechanism of indicating when their ability to remove contaminants from the air has been reduced. Therefore, to ensure their replacement before they fail or are otherwise in need of further processing, several U.S. guidelines require use of end of service life indicators. Presently, the availability of end of service life indicators is rather limited. Alternatively, a commonly utilized change-out schedule for respirators is based upon the identity and concentration levels of compounds expected to be encountered within the workplace over a period of time. Typically, a change-out schedule is based on an initial determination of average exposure and the corresponding duration of the component to that exposure. This initial determination establishes a required time period of service life. The user or an authorized person documents the first day of usage and keeps track of the required time period for purpose of determining when the component is not usable and needs to be disposed or otherwise processed. Clearly, the making and keeping of extensive records that contain all of the above-referenced information present a substantial administrative task.
Moreover, facilities in which workers wear PPE articles are often required to keep detailed records regarding the PPE articles as well as the individuals wearing the PPE articles. Some such records include information regarding use of PPE articles, maintenance, and condition of PPE articles, as well as training of the workers to use the PPE articles. In addition, records of certain mandatory regulations and compulsory audit histories must be kept. For example, in some cases, RPE articles require maintenance to be carried out by properly trained personnel at least every three months and after each use.
Despite the extensive records that are required to be collected regarding PPE articles and their associated components, adherence to various predetermined criteria, including a change-out criterion, is typically the responsibility of the user. Thus, compliance with a particular criterion may become an issue in work environments involving relatively large numbers of workers and/or respirators because of the relative difficulty in tracking worker habits and diligence. Clearly, workers are at a higher risk of exposure upon breakthrough of the contaminants when schedules are not adhered to.
Thus, there is a need for electronic methods and systems that could make the implementation of determining condition of components easier and more efficient, particularly in regard to tracking of components that are removably coupled to PPE articles.